Born in Flames and Q&A with Lizzie Borden

Today we watched 'Born in Flames' which is a 1983 film by Lizzie Borden. I found it fascinating as it was about a group of feminist women who rebel against their socialist government, and tackled issues such as racism, sexism and classism. The film, although made in the 1980s, felt very relevant to the current times, with extremism on the rise again and the very prevalent and well documented police brutality in the US.

We also had the privilege of having a Q&A with Lizzie Borden herself, which was really interesting as we found out that she hadn't extensively scripted the film but rather given the actors the opportunity to craft the story themselves. She made the film with a very limited budget and shot most of it on the streets of New York. It had experimental elements in that there wasn't a specific point of view that the film was told from, which left the audience to make up their own minds about the characters. Additionally, the dialogue, music and other audio would often overlap, meaning that the audience never got the full picture and thus the meaning was not carefully and clearly laid out for the audience as it often is in modern cinema. I found this refreshing.

Here is the trailer for the film: